started farming for themselves began to increase—and many who would have continued on the soil, gave up the idea and sought employment in the other industries which were being developed by leaps and bounds. Others contented themselves to start on a limited capital as renters or tenants, hoping to be able to purchase land a little later on.
In 1850 the number of farms was 1,449,000 and the working population on the farms was 4,082,000 persons. Of these, 34 1-2 per cent were land owners, 1 per cent were tenants, and 64 1-2 per cent were the children of farmers, wage hands and slaves. Thirty years later (1880) when the slaves had long been freed and the settlement of the Western lands was in full swing, the number of farms had increased to 4,009,000, with a working population of 7,714,000, and of these 44.2 per cent were land owners, 7.8 per cent were tenants, and 48 per cent were children of farmers and wage hands. The proportion of land owners had increased by 28 per cent, the farm hands, children, etc., had decreased more than 25 per cent, but the tenant farmers had increased 680 per cent. The development of the railroads and the opening of the homestead lands offset to a great degree the increased cost of farm equipment; yet, relatively speaking, there were 12 1-2 per cent less farmers in 1880 than there were in 1850—the working farmers, in comparison to the total population, had decreased one-eighth.
In 1900, twenty years later, the farm owners were 42.7 per cent of the working population on the farms, a decrease of about 3.4 per cent. The tenants had
